“I really don’t think joining one of the school’s sports teams is as crazy an idea as you're making it out to be, Jenni.” Beth patiently explained to me while we both stood outside the school building, waiting for our bus to arrive. “Playing on the volleyball team could be fun.”

“Fun?” I asked incredulously, having turned my body entirely in her direction to glare at her. “Giving up what little free time I have to spare, so that I can be forced to play volleyball on a team of people I barely know all that well, is not my idea of fun, Beth.”

“Pssh, you’re making it sound way worse than it is.” Beth said dismissively, making a shooing gesture with her hand as she did so. “Even if you didn’t like the idea, did you really need to run away screaming after Coach Philip suggested it to you?”

“Now who’s the one making things sound worse than they were?” I retorted. “ I politely and calmly bid Coach Philip goodbye as I then walked away with complete grace and poise.”

“It was more of a light jog, actually.” Mira casually added. “It was kind of annoying, having to catch up with you.

“See, even the new girl thinks you ran away in abject terror and fear at the suggestion of joining the volleyball team.” Beth said with a triumphant smile on her face.

“Jenni’s joining the school’s volleyball team.” The newly arrived voice of Scott asked as he came up to stand beside us.

“No!” I quickly protested.

“Yes.” Beth disagreed.

“Maybe.” Mira added in a quiet voice.

“I’m getting kinda mixed signals here.” Scott told me with a smile, clearly enjoying seeing the group of us bickering good naturedly.

“I have no intention of joining any sports teams. I have less and less free time as it is.” I answered morosely.

“I can imagine.” Mira snidely commented in a soft voice.

“What was that new girl?” Beth asked snippily. “Speak up so the rest of us can hear you.”

Beth's words caused Mira to shrink down into her hunched posture a bit more.

“Nothing.” She finally replied.

“Uh-huh, I thought that’s what you’d say.” Beth coldly said to her.

“Beth, come on, don’t be mean.” I said in Mira’s defense. “Just because she’s a bit shy doesn’t mean you can bully her.”

“I’m not bullying her.” Beth loudly retorted. “I was just…pointing out the little sarcastic comments she was making.”

“Okay, okay.” Scott finally said, intervening in our nascent argument before it could grow any further. “I think we can all just agree that we should all just chill and be nice to each other.”

“Fine.” Beth immediately relented. “I’m not trying to argue or anything. I was only…trying to have your back and stuff.”

“I know, don’t worry about it.” I told her. “Mira and I still don’t really know each other all that well, but we still at least have to work together on our paper for English. So I’d like to try and get along with her, if I can help it."

I also had that quest from the vision I had about Mira also, but I wasn't going to tell Beth that. Not that there would be much point, even if I tried.

“Fine, fine, I hear you.” Beth said in exasperation. “You win. I’ll be nicer.”

“Cool, so why don’t you tell us more about yourself then? It’s Mira, right?” Scott asked in a friendly and welcoming tone of voice at the shy, hunched-over girl. “I think I remember hearing that you’re really into music and stuff. Is that true?”

“I…” Mira started to say as she lifted her head back up and began to look between the three of us. As she was doing this, the pupils of her eyes got really big at one point, and her whole body seemed to tense up. “I, uh… gotta go.”

And with that, the strange dark-haired girl quickly dashed away from us and out of our eyesight faster than I could have expected.

“Wow, what was that?” Scott asked in shock at the display. “Did I say something wrong?”

“That’s what I’m saying. She’s weird.” Beth was quick to make our true feelings known about Mira again.

“Come on, Beth, don’t start this…” Before I could complete my response to Beth, a familiar red convertible pulled up to the curb the three of us were standing at.

Seated in the front seat with a similar-looking black suit to the one he’d been wearing last time was Special Agent Gunderson of the IDPA. Coming to a complete stop, he turned to look at the three of us, showing off an expensive pair of aviator sunglasses covering his eyes.

“Hey there again, Jenni, although maybe I should be more formal out in public and call you Ms. Morrow.” Gunderson mused while scratching his chin. “Meh, it’s just you and your two friends there, so it should be fine.”

“Uh, hi.” I said to him awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“Hmm, I wanted to check in with you.” He casually replied. “There’s a lot of things we should talk about, and I wanted to make sure you’re still doing alright.”

“Okay…” I tentatively responded, looking back and forth between my two friends to see how they were reacting.

Beth's expression was a kind of skeptical defensiveness. At the same time, Scott’s seemed to have adopted a confused, curious look on his face. Both didn’t quite know what to make of the sudden appearance of a supposed special agent of the FBI right in front of them.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“What?” Gunderson asked, noting the awkward silence and the back-and-forth look I’d been giving my friends. “I was bound to meet with your friends eventually, may as well get it over with.”

Letting out a resigned sigh, I mentally accepted Gunderson’s words and decided to just move on from there.

“So, what’s happening now, then? Are you picking me up to take me somewhere?” I asked him in a patient tone of voice to hide my slight feelings of annoyance.

“Well, that was my original plan, but since you’re two friends are here with you, why don’t I give you all a ride home first.” Gunderson said with a bright smile, teeth shining and sparkling white in the sunlight.

“What?” I asked in surprise. “You want to give all of us a ride home?”

“Yeah, why not?” Gunderson said with a shrug.

“Wait, you’re that guy from the FBI, right?” Scott said, speaking up for the first time since Gunderson’s arrival.

“I am. Even got a badge and everything.” Gunderson happily responded while pulling out and showing him the badge he kept in his coat pocket that definitely didn’t say FBI on it.

“Huh, cool.” Scott declared after his evaluation of the item Gunderson was holding. “So, what? You have more questions for Jenni, and that's why you’re back here, then?”

“Yeah, I’d like to know that too.” Beth spoke up, intervening before Gunderson could respond. “It’s a bit random to just pop up and start offering teenagers rides.”

“Ah yeah, that’s exactly right.” Gunderson calmly answered. “I did need to follow up with Jenni about the case we’re looking into. It might have connections with some other investigations our people are working on. Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of it with Jenni’s help here.”

“Well, if you have questions for Jenni, we can probably answer your questions as well.” Scott offered. “We were all there that night at the party.”

“You were, yeah, and of course, any help you could provide would be more than welcome.” Gunderson offered. “All the more reason to offer you all a courtesy ride back to your homes.”

“I don’t know about this.” Beth said apprehensively. “You know this guy better than us, Jenni. Is he cool?”

“Yeah, Jenni, am I cool?” Gunderson asked with a raised eyebrow visible behind his sunglasses.

“I trust him to drive us all home if that’s what you mean.” I answered Beth. “But as for his coolness or not, no comment.”

“Hey!” Gunderson exclaimed. “I’m driving this kick-ass convertible, and I’m dressed to the nines. How you can go putting me down like that.”

His defensive response to the small slight against him made me giggle slightly.

“I’m just teasing you, old man.” I said to him, opening the front passenger door and sitting down beside him.

“O-old, how could you say such a thing to me.” Gunderson mimed being shot in the heart at my words. “I’m barely even fifty, don’t go picking out a gravestone for me just yet.”

Taking my cue, Scott hopped into the backseat and scooted over to the far side, allowing Beth space to sit down beside him. Eventually, after a lingering moment of consideration, Beth finally joined us and sat down on the shiny white leather bench seat in the back.

Putting the red convertible back into drive, Gunderson sped away from the school’s front curb we’d been standing at, and out into the light traffic of the nearby road.

“So, what’s it like working at the FBI?” Scott excitedly asked. “You must have some crazy stories.”

“Oh god, yes.” Gunderson said with a smile. “More than you can even imagine. Unfortunately, most of the interesting ones are classified, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, man, really? That sucks.” Scott said dejectedly. “I was hoping to hear some cool stories about taking down some like international terrorists who were plotting to blow up a building or something.”

“Hah, even if I did have any stories like that, they’d be way too classified to talk about with a civilian, sorry.” Gunderson comfortably lied.

Although, most of what he said to Scott wasn’t entirely a lie. He did probably have tons of crazy stories he couldn’t talk about, and the IDPA probably did have some kind of classification system, I’d imagine.

“Can you tell us anything more about what happened to that wolf attack at Damien’s?” Beth asked after Scott began sulking. “We were all there and involved, so it wouldn’t be revealing any government secrets to talk about that, right?”

“Hmm, you’re somewhat right.” Gunderson replied. “I can talk about what happened to all of you in that situation, but I can’t necessarily reveal details of events, people, or places that may still be connected to what happened then.”

“So what, you just ask us all whatever questions you want, and we can’t ask anything back?” Beth bitterly responded.

“Come on, Beth, the FBI is just trying to do their job.” I interjected, hoping to cut off any arguments before it started. “Sometimes secrets are necessary, despite people not really liking them.”

That last part was said more to myself than trying to cover for Gunderson or anything. I still felt awful about having to lie to my friends about all this stuff, and the time when I could finally tell them the truth couldn’t come soon enough.

“She’s right.” Scott added. “The FBI is part of the government, and the government loves to make things classified. But I don’t think they’d do it, unless they have a valid reason to.”

“Fine, whatever. I guess I’m wrong again.” Beth said petulantly, crossing her arms and looking off to the side.

Gunderson cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking again. “So then, how’s school been? Do you guys have any interesting plans for the weekend?”

I was somewhat grateful Gunderson was nice enough to offer my friends a ride home and for a chance to avoid having to take the bus, but skirting around the truth, with them around, was kind of a pain.

“Uh yeah, school’s been fine,” I told him quickly. “I think things are slowly getting back to a somewhat normal routine.”

“Good, that’s good to hear.” Gunderson said back. “Dealing with tragedy is a process, and you shouldn’t feel rushed in how you deal with it. That said, I’m glad to see things are getting back to normal for all of you guys.”

Normal. That might be possible for the rest of the school, but for me…not likely.

“Yeah, we just had the most epic dodgeball game in gym class.” Scott eagerly told Gunderson. “Jenni came back and won it all by creaming this girl named Jackie right in her face with a ball.”

“You know, Jackie took us aside and thanked us for what we did at the party.” Beth casually revealed.

“She did what?” Scott said in a slight bit of surprise. “I mean, that makes sense, I guess, and that's nice of her, but I didn’t expect Jackie, of all people, to say something nice to any of us.”

“But she did, though.” Beth replied. “Still not sure how I feel about it either.”

“Just take it for what it is.” I told her. “I doubt it means she's going to immediately be our best and closest friend, but maybe she will stop being such a….”

“Bitch?” Beth finished for me.

“Yeah, that.” I agreed.

“Sounds like quite the dramatic encounter, but where exactly am I dropping you guys off at?” Gunderson asked.

“Uh, we’re not too far from Scott’s house. You can drop us both off here.” Beth announced while arranging her backpack and preparing herself to leave. “I kinda feel like hitting some sticks against some loud percussive objects for a while.”

“Ah, alright then.” Gunderson said, pulling off to the side of the road and up against a nearby curb. “You two enjoy your weekend.”

“Thanks, Mr. Gunderson.” Scott happily told him while waving goodbye to the both of us. Beth just got out and gave a quick wave of her own as she started to walk off in the direction of Scott’s house.

“Nice couple of friends you got there.” Gunderson told me sincerely. “You’re lucky to have them.”

“Yeah, I know.” I said a bit sadly. Still focused on the guilt I was feeling about having to keep things from them.

“So, time to get down to business, and talk about things for real now.” Gunderson said as he pulled away from the curb and made a sharp u-turn with the car.